6th
Who is God?
What words would you use to describe the God of the Bible?
In early 2003, I attended a presentation Josh McDowell made to about 1,000 pastors and leaders of student ministries. As Campus Crusade for Christ evangelist for many years, Josh has likely spoken to more youth and college students the world over than anyone else alive today.
He made an alarming statement about youth who attend the big Christian music festivals where he is often a keynote speaker.
“They are not worshipping the God of the Bible, but rather one of their own imaginations.”
He has been asking the “Who is God?” question for many years and said he used to have a good percentage give a fairly accurate description of God.
“Now,” he said, “I almost get none who can give an answer that would distinguish the God of the Bible.”
He went on to say that youth leaders bore some significant responsibility for letting students think they were worshipping the true God with their singing and hand waving when they didn’t even know him.
When I have recounted this story to others, who feel they are implicated in this assessment, there have been two primary reactions.
The strongest emotional response is the most surprising one. Some attack Josh. One prominent leader in the Christian music industry said, “Josh is wrong, what does he know? That is a stupid statement.”
The other response is actually worse. “Well they are just high school and college students, what do they know? They aren’t theologians!”
Really? The two words we are about to discover that describe the God of the Bible are common in a very successful children’s animated movie (Toy Story) and describe almost every computer in the world.
Contrast this with a story told by a professor at a prominent evangelical institution in Louisville, KY. He was traveling in China and was urged to go meet a certain woman.
He was shocked at what he saw and learned. This woman had been giving the gospel out with a traveling street witnessing team in cities in China. In one city, they told her to stop and she refused. They arrested her and cut off one of her arms at the elbow.
When she healed from the wound she returned to the same street and started witnessing again. She was arrested again. The other arm was cut off at the elbow too.
Now handless, she faced a life of great difficulty. But thankfully she knew well the God whom she served and was thus fearless in the face of almost unbearable persecution.
When she again returned to the same street, now with no hands, the lead officer, who had arrested her before, saw her actions and with great passion and anguish in his spirit came to her and asked who this God was – because he needed him too.
The woman had become a great witness for the gospel in China. Her age? She was still a teenager, having had her first arm cut off at 14 years old!
Is it possible that China is having the greatest spread of the gospel in church history because their young people know God? Could it be that we are having a loss of 75% or more because the young people in American churches don’t?
So who is God? Wayne Grudem, among the most highly regarded theologians of our generation, says, “Apart from the true religion found in the Bible, no system of religion has a God who is both infinite and personal.”
Those two words together distinguish the God of the Bible from all other options.
Could I suggest that we take time to learn the meaning of these two terms? Could we then teach every single young person within our influence to know the true God – not just to learn the two words as words – but what they mean and how that transforms us?
It is possible! You may be amazed at the results it achieves over the short and long term. It is time we had some amazement about God from young leaders - Christian leaders – like the young Chinese woman!
NEXT POST ON THIS TOPIC:
Did you know there are only four possible options in the whole world on the question about “who is God – or - “what is ultimate reality?” Not fifty, not one each for the hundreds of religions. Just four and all religions, worldviews, or beliefs, hold to one – or part of one.
